Join us for the continuation of our New Queer Cinema series for a screening of The Watermelon Woman (1996) and discussion. Cheryl Dunye’s classic film broke new ground in its representation of being queer and black and searching the archives for the wayward lives and beautiful experiments (in the words of Saidiya Hartman) of the women that came before you. Dunye is known more recently for her work on Dear White People, Queen Sugar, and her electrifying episode of Lovecraft Country (2020).
“Cheryl Dunye’s bitingly funny, deeply personal feature debut is a landmark look at the black lesbian experience. The director herself stars as Cheryl, a twenty-something lesbian struggling to make a documentary about Fae Richards, a beautiful and elusive 1930s black film actress popularly known as the Watermelon Woman. While uncovering the meaning of Richards’s life, Cheryl simultaneously experiences a total upheaval in her own when she embarks on an affair with a white woman (Guinevere Turner). Soon, each answer Cheryl discovers about the Watermelon Woman evokes a flurry of new questions about herself and her future.”
With thanks to Film Hub NI.
